Facebook's Oregon Data Center Uses As Much Power As Entire County

1sockchuck writes "The first phase of the Facebook data center in Oregon uses 28 megawatts of utility power, local officials said this week. That's not extraordinary for a facility of that size in most data center hubs. But it stands out in Crook County, Oregon where all the homes and business other than Facebook use 30 megawatts of power. The economics of Facebook's presence in Oregon are outlined in a new study, which asserts that the Prineville facility has brought tens of millions of dollars into the local economy. The second phase of the Facebook project is now underway, and the local utility grid is being expanded to add capacity." The study claiming economic benefits was commissioned by Facebook (reader beware).

Indeed

[korgitser]

I have always noticed, the bigger you get, the more power hungry...

All this..

[undulato]

..so that you can tell people what you had for your breakfast. And then show them.

I was going to post this to my Facebook feed..

[jamesjw]

But then i'd be purpetuating the problem somewhat :)

You know there's something wrong with computing...

[carlhaagen]

...when it costs more energy to blog about your breakfast than it does actually cooking it.

Re:Energy per user

[Anonymous Coward]

Does the ridiculous figure you come up with not make you question your working? 35 electric fires constantly on per user of facebook? In one datacentre? Are you high?

I pray you are not in any science or engineering disciplines ...

0.035 Watts/user you spoon

Entire county

[Trogre]

Did anyone else read that as Country? That would have been news-worthy.

Re:How much is 28 Megawatt?

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen a 1.21 GW generator too and it's only the size of a DeLorean.

Handier unit

[srussia]

The Gore (G). The power consumption at Al Gore's house in August 2007 was around 23,000 kWh.

That gives an average draw of around 30kW.

So this baby sucks a nice round 1 kiloGore (1kG).

Re:You know there's something wrong with computing

[Hognoxious]

..when it costs more energy to blog about your breakfast than it does actually cooking it.

You can do both at the same time on a Pentium 4.

Re:Energy per user

[jones_supa]

Does the ridiculous figure you come up with not make you question your working? 35 electric fires constantly on per user of facebook? In one datacentre? Are you high?

My calculation was sponsored by the Green Party.